Things you learn while trying to find a phone number

I was scheduled to give a talk tomorrow before a group about computers and the Linux operating system. Unfortunately I have a knee that has been giving me grief for a while now and near the beginning of this week I twisted it and undid any healing that has taken place since the injury. When I went to call the contact person for the group to inform him that I would not be able to make it I found that I did not have his home phone number. So I called a mutual friend who did and in the course of the conversation learned the following.

When I explained why I needed the phone number she asked me if I was going to put heat or ice on my knee and I told her that the doctor has recommended that I put ice on it. She said that she wanted to pass along a tip for times when I did need to apply heat to some body part for therapeutic purposes and gave me the following instructions.

Take an old sock, it must be cotton, and fill it with rice. Not the quick minute rice but the kind you have to cook. Fill the sock with it and sew the end shut. You can then put the sock in your microwave and heat it. It will hold the heat for an extended period of time. When it does cool down just put it back in the microwave and reheat.

She said that eventually the rice cooks and tuns brown and will no longer hold the heat. At this point you tear open your stitching and replace the rice. She told me it works wonders for people with arthritis problems. It you don't have a sock you can use a small tea towel or what ever you have handy just so long as it is pure cotton.

Now that I think about it if you don't have a spare sock because you get two back out of the dryer every time you put two in I want to talk with you. You have some system that could patented and we both could retire on the profits from it. Or we could sell it to the sock industry to keep it off the market!

So that is what I learned today and it is your tip of the week from Oakmont.